The University of Hawaii at Manoa says it’s been elected to join a leading consortium of Pacific Rim research universities.

The university said Friday a university must be rated as a leading university of a country or a premier university within its geographical region to join the Association of Pacific Rim Universities.

The group was established in 1997 by the presidents of the California Institute of Technology, the University of Southern California and the Berkeley and Los Angeles campuses of the University of California.

The association includes 45 universities in 16 countries from Australia to Thailand. The schools collectively enroll two million students and employ 120,000 faculty members.

UH Manoa is among the top 30 public research universities in the nation for engineering and science federal research funding.